Ger Manas on the Weight of the Championship
Talking Balls
In most counties round the country the Championships are well underway. The familiar smell of wintergreen, rubs, returning heroes and former glories. Resident Expert Ger Manas casts a quizzical eye over some of the antics he’s come across.
I heard yer man Paddy Heaney from the Irish News tell the story recently how Enda Gormley coached the Glen Maghera Under 14s over thonder in Derry to a Feile title by playin’ with a sweeper back. Another fella was telling me how a few years back Tony Scullion took a Ballinascreen minor team to a Championship. To do it he invited every single player on the team to come and meet him in his house for one to one meetings - when he got them there he got every one of them to tell him what they would contribute and in turn he toul them what he expected of them. My only worry if I done that would be there’s a couple of fellas ye’d end up rootin’ them in the hole and telling them to get te f**k out of it. As well as that there’s a cub that’s been hangin’ round the place chasin after my neice - kindest way to describe him would be like some oul hound-dog in heat. Last thing I want to do is be encouraging that hoor to be about the house.
Come the Championship - sometimes when you’re taking a team the pressure’s unreal. There’s a good buddy of mine takes a team now, and before every game he has to sleep for a couple of hours before the game. He feels like pukin’ the whole day of the game. Once he gets to the ground and that he’s grand but before it he’s not great now to be honest. I was with him once giving him a hand and he was bokin’ and coughin’ - I thought he was gonna f**kin die on me. Come the throw in tho’ he was like the f**kin ice man. Tactics, motivation - you name it he had it. Deadly stuff altogether.
Yer always looking for the wee bits of things make the difference - train them harder, make them run faster. Be tougher; more physical. Tactical innovation, wee tricks. Sure at the end of the day - they’re players and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Players cross the white line and they either play or they don’t. They don’t play for you though - that’s the easiest mistake to make. They do things for their own reasons and ye never know until the ball throws in whether they’ll let ye down or not. To be honest ye know from training and coaching the ones that will do the business on the big day or not. The ones that cut the corners in drills, the ones that have excuses to miss training, the ones that have excuses to come late or leave early. Sometimes you go with players and they let you down. That’s the worst.
Used to drive me f**kin’ crazy - not any more. The wife was for roadin’ me. “What is it about their time that they think it’s more important than mine” I’d be gulderin’ like blue f**k at the first person I met in our house. The wife might have the priest in or some of the stuck up oul bitches from the mothers and toddlers she helps with. I think they think I’m a f**kin looper but I’ll tell ye there’s one of them wouldn’t be long getting’ my toe up her hole if she gives me a sanctimonious look again. Ever since she said ‘Shouting doesn’t help Ger, evidently.’ Evidently? Evidently? Jaze I can feel the pressure rising talking to her. Back to the players. Ye find the ones that let ye down don’t really give a shite about the team. They’re only concerned about themselves. They don’t see the whole team picture. They are selfish and really ye might as well be dealing with the Under 8 team to be honest about it.
I love the player that steps to the plate come championship. The one who knows this is it - this is their day and their time. They take the slaps and get up and play on. They ride the challenges, they know when to roll the dice and when to hold their hand. The cast a cold eye on life on the pitch and they know who’s gonna thrive and who’s gonna die out there. They’re cool, passionate, controlled, aggressive, the full package, the real deal. They usually come across some wise ass wants to fill them in and usually they get a brave skelp or two. They put the bluffer that cuts the corner to shame. They deserve respect and awe and admiration and if any of thems reading this they’ll know who I mean. The bluffers - they wouldn’t recognise the face I see in their own mirror.
The difficult thing for managers too is if ye win - ye’re a great fella altogether. If ye make the right changes things are deadly. But if ye get bate - every hoor in the country can blame ye and point the finger however they want. That’s life I suppose and it’s what ye sign up for. The thing about it is I suppose to walk away when you think it’s right and sometimes I could kick myself - I think I’ve hung around places too long.
There was one fella managed a team up in Derry - he was a bit of a legend about theclub. Anyway he decided the boys weren’t hardly enough and weights were still a bit new fangled them days but he decided that weight training was gonna be a central part of the regime so off he f**ks up to an auction in Belfast. There he got himself a set of dead weights for the club the likes would have done the entire Bulgarian Olympic Weight liftin’ team. Ye know the boys I mean? They’re wiry wee c***s could lift a Ford Transit van above their head and them wearing one of the them slingshot things that looks way to tight round the balls and backside for my liking - the chafin must be shockin’- and you near able to see the veins. Anyway our fella load the weights into the oul van - them that heavy they near went through the floor.
He lands back up to the club and arranges a tribe of fellas to give him a hand in. Took ages to lift the things in but they managed it whatever. That night at training he gathers the fellas into training and points at the weights. Sez he: “Lads we might win f***all in the championship this year and we might only win a whean of league games but I’ll tell youse boys wan thing. By the end of the season - every single wan of you’uns will be able to lift every single one of them weights. D’ye f***in understand?”
Was he right? F***in right he was. They nearly got relegated, they got bate first round in the Championship and at the end of the year every single one of the players that were still out playing gave him a hand to lift the weights back into the van to take them back up the road, back to the auctioneer to be sold.
That’s the Championship mentality. Winners, losers - draws out something from everybody.